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Monthly Archives: March 2012

We Recovery persons have behavioral tendencies that we have developed over our years of addiction/alcoholism etc. – and,….we want to change them. In order to do that we have to “become entirely ready” and that takes practice-persistence-patience and prayer.
Here are some perspectives on that theme from our old friends TheDailyOhm.com. I’m not sure that improvement can be made on their rendition – take a read and see if you agree. I am sending you all a little YouTube Meditation Video and sound to assist in finding the calm, always aided by the process of deep,slow breathing and conscious muscle relaxing from toe to head.
The Twelve Steps and Traditions are the 80 year old principles that have helped a great many of us in finding some spiritual balance in our recovery. I wrote a book about them:http://www.livingtwelvest… You can see examples of the drawings and excerpts from the daily affirmations at the site, as well as my blog which is archived back to 2010. 40,000 readers have visited since October 2011 and in March of that year, In The Rooms awarded me their Book of The Month designation. Now, there are over 2,000 readers in USA, Australia, Canada, U.K. and South Africa, with apps for mobiles like pods, pads and phones and E-Book versions on Kindle and Nook.
Wishing all of you the best of contentment – joy in our mutual lives of continued recovery.
Arthur Messenger

March 26, 2012
Softening and Expanding
Being Receptive to What You Want

In a world of harshness, it is time to soften and expand how we go about our life.

In order to get what we want in life, we have to be willing to receive it when it appears, and in order to do that we have to be open. Often we go through life with defenses we developed early on in order to protect ourselves. These defenses act as barriers, walls we needed at one time to feel safe, but that now serve to shut out desired influences, like intimacy or love. So an essential part of being receptive to what we want is to soften these barriers enough to let those things in when they show up. For example, we may spend a lot of time alone as a way to protect ourselves from being hurt by other people, but we can see how this is now preventing us from meeting new friends.

Another obstacle to our receptivity can be our tendency to believe that we have to act aggressively in order to achieve our desired goal. This can cause us to become mono-focused and to fail to see, and be open to, opportunities on the periphery of our vision. So becoming receptive involves a softening of our defenses and a willingness to remain open to possibilities outside our immediate realm of vision. If we are looking for love or friendship, it means first looking within ourselves to see where we are shut down, and second, not getting too fixated on where we might find the love we want. In this way, we become more open as individuals and more expansive in terms of what we see as possible.

Often, the things and people we want to draw into our lives elude us because we are unconsciously blocking them out, either with our defenses, or with tunnel vision that causes us to not see them when they appear. When this is the case, we can take action by exploring and softening our barriers, and expanding our vision to encompass new possibilities. These actions are the essence of receptivity.

“Selfishness and Self-centeredness, these are the root of our problem.” Here’s the reading for today from:

“Living the 12 Steps of Recovery – One Day at a Time – As it was in the Beginning” – Arthur Messenger, Author Wing & a Prayer Publishing, LLC – November 2010.

Available at Amazon – KINDLE/ Barnes & Noble – NOOK, and on the website: http://www.livingtwelvestepsrecovery.com/ in signed First Edition Softback shipped anywhere.

We Must End Our Selfishness

Selfishnessâ€”self-centeredness! That we think is the root of our
troubles. We are driven by numerous forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity.
When we step on the toes of others, they hurt us or we discover
that we have placed ourselves there by having made decisions which put us in a position to be hurt.
We find our problems are of our own making; our alcoholic wills
have run self-riot, though we may not think so. We must be rid of this selfishness or it will kill us!
God makes that possible. There is most often no other way of entirely getting rid of the bondage of ourselves than with the aid of God. We have to have that help, and it comes when we stop playing God ourselves.
In this drama of life, we decide that God is going to be our director.
He is the principle; we are his producers. He is our father and we
know that each of us is His child. This concept forms the keystone in
the arch we pass through toward faith and freedom. Thatâ€™s where weâ€™ll find a healthy dependence and reliance.

All of us in recovery have our own understanding of what we call a spiritual experience. Ditto – but here’s something that went down at my book signing event today. It didn’t happen to me – but inadvertently through me. I know – crackers – but here me out and then form your own opinion.

scene one – setting the stage:Â In the rear end of the hotel there is a foyer where they had the whole registration, administration raffle ticket – hospitality area set up. I’d been there for about four hours (any of you reading that can relate grimace here. I am always early and always wonder why the hell I was!)Â The main area is where the exhibitors and my book signing table were set-up and was 3/4 full. That’s semi wall-to-wall AA’s and Al-Anons, all sans cup of coffee – jabbering with joy and caffeine madness.

Earlier in the day, Bernie – 40ish attractive woman comes by the table to say hello – appearing at an almost magic serendipitous instant that her ex-husband, (flash to bad scene – they are not speaking and had one of those bloody knock-down inventory in loud voice taking divorces where everyone was supposed to take sides) he simultaneously slides by — a few rows back. The spiritual friction is like a static electricity storm prior to a hurricane. Floyd does a ‘keep moving exit stage right” and she just grimaces at me, painfully aware of his aura.

scene two – the incident:Â Like one of those “out of NOW-where” situations occurring without warning, she starts to choke-up, tearing, her face,grimacing – mumbling about two years while she’s looking at me. Part of me just got injected with a “you can make this end here expression on my face” and – shit if she didn’t get the message saying: “I’m gonna go over to him and say hello and give him a hug. Without further ado, she does JUST that and the picture of time being stopped like they were the only people in the room; filled with the air of forgiveness and genuine loving respect; overcomes them and is like an Oscar moment on their faces —— they hug, kiss (can you imagine!!!!) and share just an instant of genuine forgiveness. Then she walks away.

scene three – the aftermath: Tears streaming from her eyes, she stumbles back over through the crowd, and at a slight distance, He walks on by and says something like: “A tip of the A.A. Cap to you on this Arthur.” She grabbed my hand squeezed it like a last chance vise-grips on a bad faucet handle and blurts out: “Its been two years since we spoke.”

Epilogue – what spiritual experience”? “No, you didn’t have to be there cause I’m gonna give you the details. Two people, torn by a failed marriage, one with 25 years and another with 3 after many slips, broke that awful ice glacier that forms when there is a spiritual impasse. It happened in a “West Side Story” moment and I think only the three of us were aware of it. The clock stopped – suspending us all in the moment and it ended up in a “Somewhere In Time” flash! I just got that “How very fucking cool” shit eating grin on my face. I had been part of a spiritual experience, and as those of you who have been there as well are smiling and nodding know – ain’t nothin like it.

I just had to write and tell you all and to make it more poignant, here’s “One Hand One Heart from the original West Side Story”.